Ten Games That Should Get the Warriors Treatment

With the release of Dynasty Warriors 9 upon us, it seems Koei Tecmo has returned to their roots in the Three Kingdoms and decided to take a break from anime like One Piece or video games like Dragon Quest. As enjoyable as it is playing through the Three Kingdoms of Jin, Shu, Wei and Wu, there are plenty of other game franchises out there that would work well with a Warriors game makeover.

Assassin’s Creed

Combat and leveling gaining were of greater importance in Assassin’s Creed Origins than in previous entries, so the idea of making Assassin’s Creed completely action oriented isn’t far fetched. The plot can just be some scientific sounding nonsense about a malfunction with the Animus where all the different Assassins come together and have to travel through space and time battling the Templars in familiar locations and time periods for fans of the series. This would naturally be the biggest game world to date for any Assassin’s Creed title since it would combine all the game worlds. The different eras would be separate, at first, but as things progress there will be 18th century naval battles against hippopotamus calvary. As a Ubisoft game, this would also combine open world exploration with the Warriors formula. The innovative Discovery Tour introduced in Assassin’s Creed Origins will also be implemented, making this the first Warriors game where players can roam battlefields with zero enemies to learn about world history.

Castlevania

This one is a bit of a gamble, as Castlevania hasn’t always done well when venturing outside of its comfort zone. Its attempt at a fighting game in Castlevania Judgment wasn’t good and the House of the Dead style arcade game was forgettable at best. Those missteps aside, this could actually be a cool game. Drawing characters from both classic Castlevania titles and the Igavanias could create an impressive roster of playable characters, plus the whip could have some interesting attack combos in this setting with musou attacks based on the weapon crash function introduced in Rondo of Blood. The common enemies like skeletons, zombies and knights could be the cannon fodder hordes the player fights with the franchise’s massive collection of boss enemies serving as minibosses and epic end of chapter battles. Dracula’s body points would serve as equipment to grant special bonuses to players, such as the rib increasing defense, the nail increasing attack and the eye revealing secrets.

Dark Souls

This would be a title for masochists only. All the developers would have to do with this one is take the existing Dark Souls games and exponentially increase the number of enemies on screen. You think you’ve mastered the game because seeing three Wretches no longer scares you? Now you’re in a room with 300 of them. To keep things moderately fair, boss monsters will remain at their normal numbers, but to give the fight more of a Warriors flair there will be hundreds of location appropriate enemies fighting alongside them. Co-op will exist but for a Warriors title first friendly fire will be enabled.

Dragon Age/Mass Effect

Couldn’t really decide between the two, and while either would be fine on their own since they are basically the same type of game despite one is Medieval fantasy and the other is a space opera, let’s go with a Warriors Orochi style crossover. The Reapers take notice of how Shepard is looking like she’s going to succeed in putting an end to their cycle of destruction, so they use their godlike powers to summon the Archdemon who is basically indestructible since there are no Grey Wardens. In order to prevent the Blight from occurring, the Normandy travels through a Mass Relay to recruit the Grey Wardens. The alliance is tenuous at first, but Urdnot Wrex sees the strength in the Mabari hound and convinces the rest of the crew to go along with it. Morrigan and Liara T’soni marvel at each other’s powers, though Morrigan is endlessly irritated by the scientific babble of Mordin Solus. Characters from the Mass Effect and Dragon Age trilogy will fight side by side against Dark Spawn and Collectors in a world that blends elements of the two franchises with a plot that makes absolutely no sense. Prior to the game’s conclusion, the two most frequently played characters will have an incredibly tame thirty second sex scene that the media will blow way out of proportion.

Final Fantasy

This one is a no brainer, though getting the proper licensing for all games could be a nightmare. Dragon Quest Heroes has proven that self-contained RPGs can lend themselves quite well to the Warriors format and Dissidia shows that Final Fantasy is full of characters that work in a more action packed setting. Imagine Vincent, Noctis and Lulu mowing down hundreds of imps, where musou attacks can be patterned after limit breaks or esper summoning. Each of the mainline Final Fantasy games will have several battlegrounds dedicated to it, though while each Final Fantasy has a great story on its own, trying to combine all fifteen of them into a cohesive narrative could get messy. What makes this idea even better is it sets things up for a Warriors Orochi style crossover with Dragon Quest Heroes, and it would feature guest appearances from other Square Enix games like Lost Odyssey, Legend of Dragoon, Chrono Trigger and The Bouncer.

Monster Hunter

The Monster Hunter series is an acclaimed action RPG series, and while fans of the series may consider dumbing it down into a purely action Warriors style game blasphemy, this could be fun as long as it’s not viewed as a proper Monster Hunter game. The roster of fighters would be fourteen characters randomly generated based on Monster Hunter World’s character creation, each one possessing a different weapon. There would of course be a custom character creation option, since creating one’s own character is part of the Monster Hunter fun but having the pre-generated roster allows for the ability to jump in and play. This game would up the action and combat of the beautifully created and distinct monster hunter worlds, but instead of crafting gear and traps while gathering materials, the focus would be on pure hack and slash mayhem against numerous behemoths.

River City Ransom

The first time playing Dynasty Warriors 2 it felt like the evolution of the gameplay in beat ’em ups like Double Dragon or Streets of Rage, and while any of the classic beat ’em up titles would work here, River City seems like it would be the best choice since it already has a more developed story than other viable candidates, not to mention its distinct art style and sense of humor. In order to help preserve the essence of River City, in addition to the normal HUD items in Warriors games there will be a special section for commentary from everyone, lest we miss a single instance of Kunio-kun beating up someone who says “barf.”

Rock Band

People refer to guitars as axes and now it’s time to use them as such. Creating any sort of story for this that makes sense and/or isn’t terrible is a daunting task that we’ll leave up to other people. A disgruntled rock band storms the Grammys in a violent rampage after being snubbed for the last time, their sold out arena show turns into a riot and they have to fight their way out past thousands of screaming fans? This one is probably best if it never leaves the drawing board, but the idea of an angry band bludgeoning thousands to death with a guitar and using drumsticks as throwing knives is an amusing idea nonetheless.

Super Mario Bros

You probably saw this entry and thought it seemed out of place but just think about it for a second. With few exceptions, Mario games are always high quality titles and this even held true with some more unexpected ventures like Mario and Rabbids: Kingdom Battle and Super Mario RPG. It might be hard to picture Mario and Luigi running through an open field beating Koopa Troopas until they pop out of their shells and Goombahs until they flatten, but based on Mario’s track record I have faith this would be a critically acclaimed commercial success if it did come into existence no matter how ridiculous this proposal might be. Plus it would be nice to see characters like Geno and Mallow again, and Bowser could be a tank character like Dong Zhou or Xu Zhu.

Ys

This franchise is pretty much halfway there already. Adol fights several monsters at a time in these action RPGs and the newer entries already implement a three member team system that isn’t too far removed from what some Warriors games already have. Adol would naturally be the main character and supporting characters would span all Ys games to include but not limited to the likes of Dogi, Duren, Hummel, Mustafa and to be completely anachronistic Yunica. Just use the graphics from Ys VIII: Lacrimosa of Dana and rework the settings of the other Ys games to match that style and there will be a gigantic world for Adol to travel and slay uncountable amounts of monsters from the Ys universe.

There were so many other game worlds that we wanted to include but tried to limit ourselves to ten. We discussed Star Wars: Battlefront but the joke about fighting thousands of loot boxes is a horse that died three months ago and Genital Jousting just conjured up way too many horrible mental images. What are some games we missed that you think should be handled by Omega Force?